谁先眨眼？中美如何打破贸易僵局

大约三周前，第一次打破中美贸易僵局的会议在国际货币基金组织总部的地下室举行，是在保密的掩护下安排的。

据知情人士透露，正在华盛顿出席国际货币基金组织春季会议的美国财政部长斯科特·贝森特会见了中国财政部长蓝佛安，讨论了世界两大经济体之间贸易几乎完全破裂的问题。

这次此前未报道的会晤是自唐纳德·特朗普就职和发动关税战以来中美官员之间的首次高层会晤。财政部拒绝对这次秘密会议发表评论。 

会谈本周末在日内瓦达到高潮，贝森特和中国副总理何立峰达成停火协议，将在 90 天内将各自的关税削减 115 个百分点。

尽管双方都警告说他们愿意长期努力，但事实证明， 停战协议比预期的更容易、更快。一个压倒一切的问题对未来的谈判具有重大影响：北京还是华盛顿先退缩？

特朗普周一宣布获胜，称他策划了与中国的“彻底重置”。与此同时，全国共产党小报《环球时报》前编辑胡锡进在社交媒体上表示，这笔交易是“中国的一次伟大胜利”。

“美国已经退缩了，”中国社交媒体上一篇关于该协议的热门帖子说。

经济学家一致认为，美国可能因为过快和过高地提高关税而玩得太过分了。“美国首先眨了眨眼，”法国投资银行 Natixis 首席亚太经济学家 Alicia García-Herrero 说。“它认为它可以几乎无限地提高关税而不会受到伤害，但这并没有被证明是正确的。”

美国和中国都认为对方更容易受到关税的影响。但她补充说，他们在日内瓦解除征税的速度表明，贸易战给双方带来了严重的痛苦。

世界两大经济体的硬脱钩威胁到中国工人的失业，以及美国消费者的通胀上升和货架空空如也。

华盛顿智库保卫民主基金会（Foundation for Defense of Democracies）的克雷格·辛格尔顿（Craig Singleton）表示，该协议达成的速度“令人震惊”，这表明“双方在经济上都比他们想象的要多”。

尽管北京在对抗特朗普的关税方面与华盛顿针锋相对，但中国谈判代表仍需做更多工作，以创造公平的竞争环境;美国对中国的关税仍然比任何其他国家都高得多。

凯投宏观计算，停火后，美国对中国商品的总关税将保持在40%左右，而中国对美国的关税将保持在25%左右。专家还警告说，要获得任何更持久的协议将是一条艰难的道路。

“中美贸易谈判将像坐过山车一样，”智库 CSIS 的中国问题专家斯科特·肯尼迪（Scott Kennedy）说。“市场可以暂时松一口气，但我们还远未走出困境。”

在会谈之前，贝森特警告说，高水平的关税是不可持续的，相当于对中美贸易的有效禁运。

The ceasefire at least narrowed the gap sufficiently for China’s extremely price competitive manufacturers to remain in business in the US.

Alfredo Montufar-Helu, senior adviser to the China Center at the Conference Board think-tank in New York, said it would have been impossible for Chinese producers to offset the 145 per cent tariffs imposed by the US. “But at 30 per cent, I think most Chinese imports into the US would regain their competitiveness.”

Before the talks in Geneva, Bessent had said the two sides were unlikely to reach a broad economic and trade deal, saying they needed “to de-escalate before we can move forward”.

But on Monday, he struck an optimistic note, hinting that Washington might be looking for the type of “purchase agreements” that characterised the initial phase of the US-China trade war during Trump’s first term. 

These involved Beijing agreeing to buy quantities of commodities, such as soyabeans, and US manufactured goods, but they were disrupted by the pandemic. “There will also be a possibility of purchase agreements to pull what is our largest bilateral trade deficit into balance,” Bessent said.

Bessent and Greer also sounded positive on the possibility of a deal with China to curb the trafficking of fentanyl precursors into the US.

“The upside surprise for me from this weekend was the level of Chinese engagement on the fentanyl crisis,” Bessent said. 

He said the Chinese delegation included an official who had a “very robust and highly detailed discussion with someone from the US national security team”.  

For Beijing, a fentanyl deal could erase 20 percentage points of remaining tariffs imposed by Trump, placing China roughly on a level playing field with other countries exporting to the US. 

China would still face sector-specific tariffs, such as Biden-era levies on electric vehicles. But other countries would also be subject to US tariffs in similar sectors.

Even with this respite, economists cautioned that the bilateral relationship remained troubled, with Trump’s unpredictable policymaking expected to drive China to continue to diversify its exports markets and try to stimulate more domestic demand. 

Chinese exporters would also probably use the 90-day window for the negotiation to frontload more exports to the US, which could lead to another surge in China’s trade surplus with the country.

“There’s been a lot of uncertainty being injected into US trade policy in general and that means that China, as well as other countries, will still look to diversify trade away from the US,” said Fred Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC.

Additional reporting by Wenjie Ding in Beijing

​Letter in response to this article:

Trump as Dick Turpin? / From Richard Cragg, London KT1, UK